In 2009, I decided to slow the course of my career for a time in order to give life to ideas that had been dancing around in my head. I took a leave of absence between finishing my Ph.D. in Neurosciences and starting the last two years of medical school to write Resonance.

I’ve always been fascinated with psychic abilities and how they might work. I’m an open-minded skeptic, being scientifically trained but having observed mysterious events first-hand. I believed in ghosts as a child and had some experiences that could not be explained through reason (e.g., during high school, my brother and I were in the kitchen when the window went up 8-10 inches on its own, with no physical explanation for how it could have raised itself). I’ve had a few dreams that came true and a few events I just knew would unquestionably happen, but not many. Though I’m not religious, I believe in the power of prayer. It’s been scientifically validated to show an effect, yet no one has proven how. Instead of a higher power, maybe prayer is tapping into an as-of-yet immeasurable energy field similar to the collective unconscious or astral plane. I do believe that there are some people who have special abilities (impressive mediums) and others who showed interesting potential while working with the CIA in the past.

I believe our mind is more powerful than we realize. People often don’t grasp that the placebo effect is a real effect. Just believing that you’re receiving a treatment, even if you’re not, can heal you. No matter how much we’ve advanced scientifically, we still only understand a fraction of our reality. It’s exciting to think that science might one day figure some of this out. Maybe ghosts are in fact alternate dimensions transiently overlapping with our own?

I prefer to read fantasies that are almost plausible – our world with a twist. So, that’s what I’ve done with Resonance. Our worlds diverged about 30 years ago. Remember that our universe is evolving, just like we are. It is not a static, quiet pool of water where Earth floats peacefully on the surface. In Resonance, a new environmental exposure related to an astronomical event like a long-ago supernova changed the electromagnetic radiation milieu of Earth. Being exposed to these different EMFs in the womb altered neurodevelopment such that psychic abilities became stronger. If a person came from a family with minor abilities, they might develop significant abilities. Someone from a family with no previous abilities might show minor abilities or at least be more empathic and intuitive as a result. This one change in the EMF spectrum created the world of Resonance.

And, since I love to read romance, relationships will be an essential component of the series, interacting with the overarching theme of how the world might change with 500+ people with very significant psychic abilities. How do the power structures adapt? How many harness their abilities for good or for evil?

So, in a nutshell, those are the reasons why Resonance involves psychics and romance, but the reason I put pen to paper and created the series is that the main characters kept creeping into my thoughts while lying awake at night. Over time, they became more formed, more real, and I felt compelled to breathe life into them with my computer keystrokes.